Bella’s Shadow Game

Bella stretches her arms on the sunny garden path. A dark shape stretches too. She turns, and it follows. “Why is that shape beside me?” she asks Mum. They stay on the path and look at the ground.

Bella raises one arm, then bends her knees. The shadow changes with her pose. Her body blocks some sunlight from reaching the paving. The darker place is a shadow. They do not look directly at the Sun.

Under a shady tree, Bella finds her shadow harder to see. The light is different here. Mum suggests making one clear light source indoors so they can investigate without waiting for the clouds to move.

Mum aims a torch towards a plain wall. Bella holds a cardboard rabbit between the torch and wall. A rabbit-shaped shadow appears. The cardboard is opaque: the torchlight does not pass straight through it.

Bella moves the rabbit, and the shadow moves too. Mum keeps the torch in the same place. They compare the cardboard shape and its shadow. The dark outline follows the cardboard as Bella moves it.

Later, they return to the garden path. Bella’s shadow points a different way. The sunlight is coming from a different direction now. Mum helps her notice the change without staring at the bright Sun.

At the table, Bella draws herself, the paving and the shadow. She adds where the light came from. “I need light, something to block it and a place for the shadow,” she tells Mum.

Bella tries one more pose outside. Her shadow copies the outline, not the colours of her cardigan. She laughs. Her following shape is no mystery now. It is a clue about where light reaches and where it is blocked.